"Mr. Toad Goes to a Psychiatrist": Unhappiness is the result of your own choices, people treat you the way you allow, and your shadow is your gold!

"Mr. Toad Goes to the Psychiatrist" is a psychological work written by United Kingdom psychologist Robert · Debord.

This book uses the characters of the classic fairy tale "The Wind in the Willows" to tell psychological stories.

The well-to-do protagonist Mr. Toad is a passionate, fashionable and adventurous guy who has caused a lot of trouble and jokes. But now he is depressed and can't extricate himself. His friends decide to help, including the wise and majestic badger, the caring but chatty river rat, and the thoughtful and kind mole. They discussed and decided to urge Toad to pay attention to this problem and take him to psychological counseling.

Under the guidance of the psychiatrist Heron, Mr. Toad begins his journey of psychological counseling.

Through a series of talks, Heron helps Mr. Toad explore the roots of his personality, especially how childhood experiences affect his behavior patterns and emotional responses.

Mr. Toad gradually became aware of his "child self", "parent self" and "adult self", and learned how to balance between these different states of self, so as to complete his secondary growth.

This is a seemingly ordinary but very profound psychological book, everyone's happiness and misfortune are the result of the joint action of the three selves, if you can't clearly recognize the existence of the three selves, you can't deal with your emotions, and you can't have a happy life.

1. Unhappiness is the result of one's own choices and has nothing to do with others.

When we think of ourselves as unlucky, feeling that things are not going well, and always unhappy, the child ego plays a leading role in the depths of our hearts.

A child's ego state refers to an individual's pattern of emotionally, thinking, and behaving similarly to a child.

Although Mr. Toad is an adult, when he feels blamed or in trouble, he immediately retreats into the role of a wounded child and reacts emotionally.

The river rat criticizes him for not driving wildly, and Mr. Toad feels very sad, aggrieved and helpless.

When he was arrested and imprisoned, he fell into a state of extreme sadness and self-pity.

When he feels lonely or lost, he craves comfort and approval from others, just as a child needs the hugs and reassurance of his parents.

The main problem of the child's ego is excessive dependence.

In such a state, happiness or sorrow seems to depend entirely on the external environment and others, and has nothing to do with oneself. This is equivalent to giving your emotional switch to someone else entirely.

This way of thinking can only be happy when you love your parents.

When you move towards social independence, it is impossible for others to pamper you, center you, and help you solve problems like your parents.

In real life, being repeatedly beaten by society is a compulsory course for everyone, and being criticized and blamed, and encountering all kinds of unexpected difficulties is also commonplace in life.

Adler said: "It doesn't matter what happens, what matters is how you see it. ”

An adult's happiness and unhappiness do not depend on how things go along or down and how others treat them, but on how they perceive, interpret and evaluate external stimuli.

In the face of the same suffering, choosing different mentalities will produce different results.

Su Dongpo was demoted countless times, but he gladly accepted it every time, had fun by himself, and finally ushered in the day when he returned to Beijing to reinstate himself. And Jia Yi was degraded, but chose a depressed and pessimistic attitude, and died at the age of 33 in depression, but it was a pity that he had extraordinary talent.

Su Dongpo's rational choice of mentality lies in the fact that the adult self defeats the child self, while Jia Yi is trapped in the mentality of the child's self, complaining all day long, and causing his own tragic fate with his own hands.

2. The disrespect of others for you is also the result of your consent and permission.

In addition to the children's self, there is also the "parental self" that seriously affects their secondary growth.

Parental ego status is based on rules, values, criticism, or praise that we learn from our parents or other authority figures.

In the parental ego state, the individual appears to be critical of others and self-critical.

The toad tells the heron that he is never angry with anyone and is not angry.

But Heron says that the "critical parental ego state" exists in everyone, and people in this state are critical and angry, but in a different way.

Toad's father and friend, Old Badger, behave in a way that is critical of others and get angry at others, while Mr. Toad behaves in a way that blames himself and sulks.

You won't be angry with others when you're sulking, but you'll suffer serious internal injuries yourself.

On one occasion, the badger went to the toad's house without permission and asked the toad to give up his position as a school director and replace him with himself.

Although Mr. Toad was not happy, he did not express his anger, because he also thought that he was inferior to the badger, so he decided to obey the old badger.

Behind this cowardly behavior is the reflection that Mr. Toad is in a mixed mode of parental self and child self.

The "parental ego" made him unconfident, did not know how to express anger, and only knew how to heal silently in self-pity.

The "child ego" makes him choose to obey the stronger side unprincipledly.

For Mr. Toad's cowardice and contradictions, Heron's advice to him is to learn to get angry without being aggressive.

After many consultations, Mr. Toad decided to follow his heart, rejected the badger's request to give up the position of school director through letters, adhered to his bottom line, and completed his second growth.

In the best-selling book "Conversations with God," Walsh says, "People treat you the way you allow them to be. ”

If you feel that someone else has violated your interests and is disrespectful to you, it is the result of your permission to some extent.

It takes courage to draw boundaries with others, but it is an inevitable process to complete inner growth.

Jumping out of the blind obedience of the "child ego" and the anger and harshness of the "parent ego", a person can find a calm way to defend his rights and interests and reject the cross-border aggression of others.

3. Unconditionally accept your own shadow in order to get its gifts.

Heron once gave Mr. Toad an assignment to ask him to think back to his childhood and see what he could understand.

All Mr. Toad could think of was his father's sternness and his mother's weakness, which made him very angry, but he did not dare to express them, because his parents had passed away and left him with a life of food and clothing.

The pent-up anger slowly becomes a source of psychological burden and unhappiness for Mr. Toad.

Heron tells Mr. Toad that he should be brave enough to cry out, show his vulnerability, not have to listen to his deceased father's voice, jump out of the "parental self" and "child self", and be his true self again.

When Mr. Toad cries loudly, it also means that he is freeing himself from the shackles of his "parental ego".

He no longer has to be ashamed of crying, nor does he have to be jealous of his harsh father.

Psychology guru Carl Jung said, "Your shadow is your gold." ”

Jung believed that the shadow parts of the heart contain untapped potentials and energies, and by recognizing and integrating these parts, we can achieve a more complete self-realization.

An "adult self" should have the energy to accept the whole self.

Both the strengths and weaknesses of the self are integral parts of the unique self.

We can't be perfect, but we can embrace our whole selves.

Only by loving everything about yourself can we bravely face all kinds of hardships in life, jump out of the shackles of "child self" and "parent self", cope with life in an optimistic way, accept the shadow in our heart, and prepare to meet its rich gifts.

Source: WeChat public account "World Classics Daily Reading"

Author: Jian Mo

Editors: Xing Cheng, Yang Min (intern)

[Disclaimer: This number is the official public welfare account of "National Reading Promotion", and this article is reprinted for the purpose of conveying more information. If there is a source label error or other inaccuracies, please contact us. We will correct it in a timely manner. Thank you]